Recently, screws used in the assembling of an electronic apparatus are reduced in size due to the size reduction of the electronic apparatus. A personal computer, which is an electronic apparatus, accommodates various electronic components in a housing. The housing includes openings such as an exhaust opening for radiating heat generated in the electronic components and a loading opening for loading a small recording medium. The housing of an electronic apparatus is assembled by a plurality of parts connected by screws.
When a screw enters the electronic apparatus through a hole provided in the housing during the production or repair of the electronic apparatus, an operator needs to disassemble the assembled electronic apparatus to remove the screw, resulting in reduction of workability of production and repair of the electronic apparatus. Further, the screw may cause accidents such as breakage of electric components and short circuits.
With regard to the above problem, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2-161797 discloses that in order to prevent the components from entering the housing, the slit width of an exhaust opening is rendered smaller than other components such as a screw. Further, there has been known an electronic apparatus housing including an openable and closable shutter attached to, for example, a loading opening for a small recording medium. When the small recording medium is not loaded in the loading opening, the shutter closes the loading opening to prevent foreign matter such as dust from entering the housing.
The electronic components such as a battery pack and a hard disk drive may be attached to and detached from the electronic apparatus body even after shipment of the electronic apparatus. Thus, it is preferable that an operator can attach and detach electronic components to and from the electronic apparatus body without disassembling the housing fastened with screws. This requirement may be realized by providing, in a housing, an opening for loading the electronic components, such as a battery pack and a hard disk drive, and a lid for closing the opening. This technique may realize ease of exchange of the battery pack and the hard disk drive and may reduce problems caused by foreign matter entering the housing through the opening.
The battery pack and the hard disk drive are larger in size than other electronic components mounted in a personal computer which is an electronic apparatus. Therefore, a large opening for loading the battery pack and the hard disk drive is inevitably formed in the housing. Thus, when a lid is opened in the production or repair of the electronic apparatus, if a screw falls into the opening, the screw may enter the back of the housing. In this case, in order to remove the screw having fallen into the opening, an operator should remove screws to disassemble the housing. In many cases, the hard disk drive is inserted into the housing through an opening to be mounted on a substrate, and thereafter to be screwed onto the substrate. Thus, in particular, screws easily enter the housing through the opening for a hard disk. In the above example, although the electronic components are attached to the electronic apparatus with screws, the above problem may also occur with other fastener components using other structures, such as a press-fit pin.